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IFF info out there?
Last Post 27 May 2009 03:08 AM by Hacker. 18 Replies.
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asdfasdf
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| 20 May 2009 11:05 PM |
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Anybody got any IFF info? Been looking for something about the syllabus, where you stay, all that. Anything would be appreciated. I'm a WSO, but I would even be interested in the pilot stuff. Thanks. |
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asdfasdf
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| 20 May 2009 11:07 PM |
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Oh God WTF is up with the avatar? I don't want that guy's picture on all my posts. Touching his hair makes him melt into a puddle for God's sake. Seriously tho, IFF info plz? |
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ENmafia
Team WantsCheck
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| 20 May 2009 11:16 PM |
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Heard it takes 5 to punch him out of your avatar...as for IFF info...I hope to one day need it....from what ive heard though all your rides will be back seat and there will be one and only one WSO in the iff squad...heard it isn't that bad...8-10 rides with one on one instruction before rolling on to your Ops squad.
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FlyinCajun
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| 20 May 2009 11:16 PM |
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Ask about 5 more times and your avatar mentor should disappear. Where are you going for IFF?
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asdfasdf
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| 21 May 2009 08:56 PM |
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Whew, glad I can get rid of that guy that easily. I think all WSO's go to Columbus because it's the closest to P-cola. |
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FlyinCajun
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| 21 May 2009 09:28 PM |
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Sweet dude, yea I'm at columbus waiting for UPT to start. I obviously cant say anything about the syllabus, but how long is IFF for a WSO? |
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asdfasdf
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| 22 May 2009 11:01 AM |
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Far as I know it's ~8 weeks. From what I've heard from others who have been through it's not all that hard and you can fly a lot more than just the 8-10 syllabus sorties if you want to. |
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Hacker
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| 22 May 2009 10:27 PM |
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I was previously an IFF instructor at Moody....fire away with questions. Beware that I've been out of it for 3+ years, so there may have been changes to specifics.
The WSO syllabus is called the "D" track, and consists of about 9 Sorties; 1 Formation, 6 Basic Fighter Maneuvers, and 2 Surface Attack. You will be riding in the back seat of the #1 jet for all of them.
The big picture on IFF for WSOs is this: it is going to be a shock to the system because it is your first exposure to a lot of different things and the expectations out of you as a student are relatively high. It will be your first time in the T-38, but the instructors will expect you to know systems, checklists, and EPs like you've been flying them as long as the student pilots have. It will be your first time yanking and banking wearing a G-suit and helmet, yet the instructors will expect you to not toss your cookies every sortie. It will be your first time in a USAF exclusive flying training environment, and the instructors will expect you to know USAF regs and procedures just like you've been reading and working under them your entire "career".
My advice to you is this: once you arrive, you need to integrate with the pilots in your class as best as possible -- have them help you study for T-38 knowledge and USAF regs. They've just been through a year of shotgun-learning the stuff, and will know what is important and what is not.
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asdfasdf
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| 23 May 2009 09:23 AM |
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Hacker, thanks for the good info. Will I be paired up with a student pilot for these sorties or an instructor pilot? Also, this might be kind of a stupid question, but do we get to drop BDUs on the ground attack portion, or learn anything about weapons release, or are they just mostly low level hops on VRs? |
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Hacker
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| 23 May 2009 11:38 AM |
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Posted By asdfasdf on 23 May 2009 09:23 AM
Will I be paired up with a student pilot for these sorties or an instructor pilot?
You will fly in the back seat of an IP.
90% of the IFF sorties are flown as formations: a "direct support" instructor in a lead airplane, and the student pilot as the front seat in the #2 jet, with another instructor pilot in his back seat as the "instructor of record" (a.k.a. the one writing the gradesheet and evaluating the student pilot). As a student WSO, you will be essentially just occupying the vacant back seat in the direct support (lead) jet. The sorties are not dedicated to WSO training, unfortunately, and yout training is essentially only taking place when student pilot training allows.
For example, your "Defensive BFM" sortie will simply be you occupying the "bandit" jet on the student pilot's "Offensive BFM" sortie. Your training, ultimately, will be secondary to your front seater being a training aid for the pilot -- you will tell the pilot to "jink!" and he won't, because he's trying to let the student pilot gun him. I know that's annoying and tough for the student WSOs to learn that way, but it actually works relatively well and, more importantly for the program's sake, it combines sorties to save time/money/gas.
Also, this might be kind of a stupid question, but do we get to drop BDUs on the ground attack portion, or learn anything about weapons release, or are they just mostly low level hops on VRs?
The T-38C doesn't drop BDUs, unfortunately. The core learning of the Surface Attack phase is to learn military controlled range procedures, bombing patterns, and bombing pass parameters/execution. You will be expected to be able to call out airspeeds/altitudes/dive angles and direct the IP in your front seat on what to do during the pass. It all happens very fast at 400 knots while aiming at the ground, so it takes some SA and practice, even from the "safety" of the back seat.
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asdfasdf
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| 23 May 2009 11:23 PM |
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Again thanks for the info. I could probably go on and on with questions but I won't get into the weeds, I guess I should leave some stuff for when I get there. |
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Hacker
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| 24 May 2009 01:42 AM |
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Have at it. That's why this place is here. |
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asdfasdf
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| 25 May 2009 11:32 AM |
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If there's 9 flights in 8 weeks, is the rest of the time spent in a classroom? Can I ride up to CBM on my own time and get my books? I am finishing here in a few weeks and I want to get started learning -38 stuff, and stuff like course rules. Also, here we have OPNAV 3710 as our general flight reg. What is the AF equivalent, and can I get it on epubs? |
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Hacker
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| 25 May 2009 01:14 PM |
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Your classroom academics will take place at the beginning, and will also be interspersed between your flights. Your sorties will progress along the timeline right along with your co-student pilot-types. Since they are flying a lot more sorties than you, you will have a lot more down time in between flights. Use this time to study in the vault, study USAF pubs, chair fly with your fellow students, etc. The pace won't be blindingly fast, but the amount of information you will have to assimilate is significant.
The USAF publications you will need to spend some time in are AFI 11-202 Vol 3 (General Flight Rules) and AFM 11-217 (Instrument Flying). There will also be an 11-238 which talks about T-38 flight rules, as well as a number of others that you won't be able to get on the internet.
No, they won't issue you publications early. The USAF controls that very tightly unfortunately.
"Course Rules" is Navy speak. You'll need to un-Navy yourself as soon as you can. There are numerous differences in teminology between Navy and USAF flying. Unfortunately, since you have only flown with the Navy, you probably do not know what they are -- and unfortunately, I can't even remember all of what the differences were otherwise I'd give you a full run-down in this thread.
I remember the first time I flew with a student WSO as a new IFF IP, and after we landed I had him make the call to ground after we cleared the runway. He called, "Wreck 01, clear the duty, taxi to my line." I nearly unstrapped and turned around and strangled him for that torrent of Navy filth eminating from his pie-hole. The USAF also doesn't use the term "99 aircraft" either. From that point on, I spent a lot of time in the brief talking about how to say different things on the radio. The local flying regulation outlined sample radio calls, so I expect when you get to Columbus there will be a similar reg where you can read and figure out what you're supposed to be saying. |
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Double D
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| 26 May 2009 01:43 AM |
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Posted By Hacker on 23 May 2009 11:38 AM
For example, your "Defensive BFM" sortie will simply be you occupying the "bandit" jet on the student pilot's "Offensive BFM" sortie. Your training, ultimately, will be secondary to your front seater being a training aid for the pilot -- you will tell the pilot to "jink!" and he won't, because he's trying to let the student pilot gun him. I know that's annoying and tough for the student WSOs to learn that way, but it actually works relatively well and, more importantly for the program's sake, it combines sorties to save time/money/gas.
Out of curiosity, since you’ve BTDT as an instructor at IFF and as a Eagle dude, is there a problem with new dudes in the Strike Eagle at SJ coming out of IFF flying with an inexperienced Pilot/WSO?
In other words, does the IFF syllabus (For -E model specific dudes) take into account what it will be like flying with another dude in the front/back seat? How hard, sts, does iterate CRM (in IFF) as opposed to a single seat type mentality?
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Hacker
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| 26 May 2009 09:14 AM |
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Posted By Double D on 26 May 2009 01:43 AM
Out of curiosity, since you’ve BTDT as an instructor at IFF and as a Eagle dude, is there a problem with new dudes in the Strike Eagle at SJ coming out of IFF flying with an inexperienced Pilot/WSO?
In other words, does the IFF syllabus (For -E model specific dudes) take into account what it will be like flying with another dude in the front/back seat? How hard, sts, does iterate CRM (in IFF) as opposed to a single seat type mentality?
Problem? No.
Realize that T-38 SUPT training and IFF both focus on the student pilot executing a "single seat mentality". That means the student is held accountable for all in-flight decisionmaking all by himself.
Once students get to the FTU/B-course, the pilot have their Form 8 checkride very early in the program (5th sortie, IIRC) which qualifies them to fly the airplane themselves. After that point, and if leadership deems the crew competent enough, student pilots and WSOs can fly together "crew solo".
Crew solo sorties are usually a total circus with respect to mission accomplishment since both seats are occupied by neophytes, but they also afford the students a huge amount of learning and confidence building.
You may be over-thinking what "CRM" is -- it isn't necesarily a formalized process that takes special training and/or focus during a sortie. There will certainly be academics about pilot/WSO crew coordination, and crew coordination continues to be a bedrock skill for as long as someone flies the F-15E, but it's not a training event in and of itself.
It's not really that big of a deal overall. |
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Double D
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| 26 May 2009 10:30 AM |
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Thanks, I know that stuff is over my head, but figured I'd ask the question anyway. |
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asdfasdf
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| 26 May 2009 05:01 PM |
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Well since we're talking CRM, I'd like to pick your brain a little bit with regard to what, in your opinion, makes a good WSO, and what seperates the good from the bad. I'm prior enlisted, have no designs on making rank or anything, so I just want to focus on being my best in the cockpit. I have an instructor down here (Super Hornet guy) who says the most important thing the backseater does is enhance the crew's SA. I know there's a million technical things we have to know too, but what do you, as a seasoned Strike Eagle pilot, need most from your WSO? When would you rather have the 200 pounds of gas? |
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Hacker
Team WantsCheck
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| 27 May 2009 03:08 AM |
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I like to think of the two-man crew, and the corresponding crew coordination required for those two guys to operate together, as both the F-15E's greatest strength AND it's Achilles Heel.
What you're asking quite simply doesn't have a clear-cut answer that can be put into a forum post -- it is something that the community has been striving for since the beginning and is an ongoing process. It is a constantly developing process because missions, tactics, and capabilities are always changing. Some of the crew coordination 'contracts' that were true when I was new to the F-15E 10 years ago aren't necessarily true today...but some of them have been exactly the same since the first day that the jet flew.
Conceptually your SuperBug instructor is spot-on: the overall goal is for the crew to have the best possible SA. Of course, that's the goal of ANY flight crew, regardless of MWS or mission. How to achieve that SA is going to differ from crew to crew: what works for one pair may not work for another.
I have certainly flown with WSOs from all ends of the experience continuum who have been all over the map in their -- our -- ability to build SA (we live or die as a crew, so it's not just one person's responsibility to build SA). But what works for you and I may not necessarily work for you and a different pilot or me and a different WSO.
F-15E squadrons do not hard-crew pilots and WSOs as part of normal day-to-day training operations. There are many reasons for this, but one of them is "cross-pollenation" between pilots and WSOs with respect to crew coordination. If you consider a situation where there are hard crews, that pilot and that WSO are free to develop whatever crew coordination agreements they want. In that environment, who knows what they might come up with, and those then become the normal habits for those two people. Now, while those agreements might work for those two people, as soon as those individuals have to fly with a different crewmate they are going to have a serious problem because other guys haven't been flying with that hard-crew agreement. So, flying with different crewmates every day allows some standardization of crew coordination agreements, and flying with lots of different people allows individuals to see different styles and skills to hopefully broaden their own skills.
As an aside, for combat operations generally squadrons do hard crew, and that then allows a pilot and a WSO to refine their crew coordination with each other for the couple of months they will fly together.
When I first got to the F-15E, believe it or not, there wasn't a "crew coordination standard". There wasn't a codified and agreed-upon list of who will do what in different phases of flight, what people will say, etc. The reason for this is that there were still so many different techniques and styles -- the community was a mix of ex F-4 and F-111 guys, plus the "Strike Eagle babies" who had only flown the 15E. Those people could not all agree on crew coordination standards, so they were never written down and presented as 'official'. Unofficially, there were some standards but they were largely just WOMs that the old guys taught the young guys.
Now, however, 3-1 (the tactics manual) has crew coordination standards written. They were put in to 3-1 about 2-3 years ago in the most recent rewrite. By that time most of the old F-4 and F-111 guys had retired, and the current batch of patchwearers couldn't figure out why it had never been written before. The standards are certainly not binding -- crews can brief damn near anything they want so long as they both agree to it -- but it gives everyone a common page to learn from and to start from. I think that it is a big step forward. |
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